“Piedmont”

By Thomas Page

I am student teaching a senior level class in Washington, DC. They have to write some poems on these prompts. I decided to try all 30 of them. However, I will not say what the prompt was but what it number was.

Prompt #20

It’s hard to find shoes in a men’s fifteen

Especially shoes that are cool

And not just gray or brown

Or with the style of a garbage can.

It’s hard to find fun socks for a foot of my size.

Most are bleached white or wool’d black.

Most designs look like Picasso’s draft

Stretched over the trunk of my metatarsals.

I forget that some people not named page don’t have monster feet

And that their shoes are in fact normally sized

Just become Pluto to my Jupiter

Whenever I extend my legs to crack my cartilage.

I don’t really consider them

Unless I bump into the table leg

Or shove them under the driver’s seat

Barking like dogs in a crate.

However, I try to let the rest

In whatever weird way I position myself

On the beige spinny chair

In the theater room.